Wake Me Up When September Ends
"Wake Me Up When September Ends" is the fourth single and power ballad from Green Day's seventh studio album, American Idiot. Released on June 13, 2005, the single peaked at number six in the United States, becoming Green Day's second Top 10 single. It also peaked at number eight in Canada and the UK, while making number thirteen in Australia. The song is well known for its music video, which paints an intimate portrait of a wartime situation. Track list AU Single: #Wake Me Up When September Ends #Give Me Novacaine (Live Version from Storytellers) #Homecoming (Live Version from Storytellers) Wake Me Up When September Ends-Ep (iTunes Download) #Wake Me Up When September Ends (Live At Foxboro, Massachusetts) 7" Picture Disc: *Side A. #Wake Me Up When September Ends *Side B. #Give Me Novacaine (Live from Storytellers) Meaning There once was much debate about what the song was about, one of the most common initial beliefs being that it is about the events of 9/11. In the liner notes, the song is dated September 10, and it is track 11 on the album. However, Billie Joe Armstrong has confirmed to the public that the song was written as a memorial anthem about his father, a jazz musician and minor league baseball catcher, who died of esophageal cancer when Armstrong was only ten years old. In this ballad, Armstrong revisits his painful childhood and thinks about the day he lost his innocence when his father died. Like many faced with such a traumatic event, he never truly recovered, and he can't believe that twenty years have passed since that September day, thus the lyrics Like my father's come to pass, 20 years has gone so fast. Armstrong associates pain with the month September, he would rather not deal with anything related to the month, prompting him to sing, As my memory rests/but never forgets what I lost/Wake me up when September ends Music video The video clip of the song features the story of a teenage couple, played by Jamie Bell and Evan Rachel Wood. The video strays from the original meaning of the song and instead focuses on the teenage couple as the boyfriend promises never to leave his girlfriend. Later in a lengthy sequence, the girlfriend confronts him about something he did (open-ended), repeatedly yelling, "How could you do this to me?" Although the audience does not know what he did, in the next scene he is hesitantly being marched out of a bus and into a room where his head is shaved. Thus, her wrath is either because he enlisted himself into the United States Marine Corps, or else his being enlisted was a consequence of whatever bad thing he did (following the generic trope of authority figures sending "disruptive" young men into the military). The video then shows the boyfriend in battle in Iraq being ambushed by insurgents. The war scene cuts out with the boyfriend taking cover after being separated from his squad in the ambush. It cuts back to the girlfriend again, where she is crying. Since the war scene suddenly cuts out, the viewer is left to think about what might have happened. This video adds to the American Idiot anti-war sentiment of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Like the rest of the videos from the album American Idiot, Samuel Bayer was the director. The video features Green Day's support guitarist, Jason White. The song eventually became a tribute song to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and sound bytes were added from various news coverages to the song. A live version of the song, recorded on September 3, 2005, at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts was released soon after and dedicated to the hurricane's victims. This is the second time Jason White has appeared in a Green Day video, first appearing in "When I Come Around", ten years earlier. The video debuted first in the United Kingdom, and in the United States several weeks later, during which time it was speculated that the heavily anti-war video would not be allowed to air at all in the U.S. Chart positions References Category:American Idiot (album) Category:Wake Me Up When September Ends